When Gem Spa announced it was permanently closing in May 2020, the news spread around the world that NYC was loosing the most famous convenience store on earth. Renamed Gem Spa in 1956, the newspaper stand was first opened in the 1920s. Gem Spa was the bodega considered as the birthplace of egg cream. In Desperately Seeking Susan, Madonna had a shooting scene at Gem Spa. Poet and writer Allen Ginsberg called Gem Spa the "nerve center" of the city. Robert Mapplethorpe bought an egg cream to Patti Smith there. Andy Warhol used to come for buying magazines that no one could find anywhere else in the city. Known as a hangout for hippies, Gem Spa was awarded the "official oasis of the East Village" by The Village Voice in 1966. Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat named one of his famous painting Untitled (Gem Spa) in 1982.